Category:Carpetmaking
From Eurêka
Carpeting
- See also Floor coverings
- See also Linoleum
- See also Rug making, craft
Carpeting Any thick, heavy wool, cotton or synthetic fiber woven with pile and used for floor covering.
Pile Raised loops or tufts that form the surface of a fabric. A pile may be cut and uncut, or a combination of the two.
- Warp pile
- Weft pile
- Knotted pile
- Velvet pile Short, dense cut pile.
- Plush pile Pile long and less dense than a velvet pile. The term is sometimes applied to all raised pile surfaces.
Ground warp (Ground weft) Warp and weft that form the foundation of the cloth in pile fabrics.
Tufts Short cut yarns that form the face of the fabric.
Wire Metal rod used in the weaving of certain fabrics to create a pile. Warp yarns are looped over rods or wires and are held in position by the filling. When plain wires are withdrawn, they leave a looped pile; if fitted with a knife-like edge at one end and withdrawn, a cut pile is produced. The height and shape of the wire determines the depth of the pile.
Shot Number of picks (or shots) of weft thread per row of tufts.
Point Loop of a pile in a carpet or rug. The number of points per square inch is equal to the number of wires times the pitch (per inch).
Setting Arranging of warp yarns on the loom to create the design.
Ply Layers or webs woven together to form a composite fabric as in a double-cloth (two-ply) or triple-cloth (three-ply) Ingrain carpet.
Web Fabric in the process of being woven.
Stuffer yarns (Fillers; Floats; Wadding threads) Extra warp or filling threads of cotton or jute that do not appear on the surface and are not part of the design but are added to give weight and thickness to carpets.
Burling Replacing of missing tufts and dropped stitches by hand before the finishing process.
Grinning Exposure of the ground between the pile yarns in poor-quality carpet.
Three-quarter carpet Standard carpet width of 27 inches or 3/4 yard.
Seamed carpet Carpet made by sewing together three 27-in or 36-inch strips of woven fabric.
Carpet Construction Types
(alphabetical listing)
Cut loop Carpet construction type.
Cut pile Carpet construction type.
Level loop Carpet construction type.
Loop pile Carpet construction type.
Multilevel loop Carpet construction type.
Patterned loop Carpet construction type.
Patterned cut pile Carpet construction type.
Patterned cut loop Carpet construction type.
Textured cut pile Carpet construction type.
Textured level loop Carpet construction type.
Tip shear Carpet construction type.
Barrel loom Handloomed with a cylinder attachment with protruding pegs that operated like a music box to control the warp threads so as to create the pattern of an Ingrain carpet. It was invented by Thomas Morton of Kilmarnock, Scotland, about 1815.
Broadloom Loom developed about 1900 to weave carpets over 4.1/2 feet wide. Now the term means any seamless carpet in widths of 6, 9, 12, 15, or 18 feet.
Types of Carpet
Handwoven carpet
- Pitch Number of knots per square inch in a handwoven carpet.
Moquette carpet Hand-woven carpet of French origin with velvet pile, designed to imitate the hand-knotted Oriental variety.
Axminster carpet (hand knotted) Pile carpet woven on a vertical hand loom in imitation of a Turkish carpet. Introduced by French weavers to England and first manufactured in Axminster in the second half of 18th cent. The industry declined in the 1820s, but revived chiefly under the influence of William Morris in 1870s.
Axminster carpet (machine tufted) Pile cut carpet intended to imitate a hand-knotted Axminster, but with the tufts mechanically bound. Such a carpet is produced on a complex power loom developed by Halcyon Skinner, an American, between 1856 and 1860.
- Moquette carpet (US) Less-expensive variety of Axminster carpet produced on a power loom perfected in 1876-77 by Halcyon Skinner, an American. The loom was introduced into England in 1878.
Venetian carpet (Striped carpet; Striped Venetian) Inexpensive flat-weave fabric with brightly colored worsted or woolen warp threads producing a striped pattern and used as hall and stair carpeting. They were popular from the late-18th cent. to 1890s when they were replaced by cheaper Ingrain carpets.
Ingrain carpet (English carpeting; Irish carpeting; Kidderminster; Kilmarnock; Scotch carpeting) Flat plain-weave carpet developed by Flemish weavers and first manufactured in England at Kidderminster around 1735 and then in Kilmarnock, Scotland. A double-cloth jacquard attachment was introduced in the 1820s coinciding with the Ingrain manufacturing in the US.
Ingrain power loom Power loom that remained popular until the early years of 20th cent. when other forms of inexpensive floor coverings became available. First patented in the US, 1842.
Brussels carpet (Body Brussels) Looped-pile carpet first made by Flemish weavers and then produced in the mid-18th cent. in Kidderminster and Wilton, England. An easily cleaned, durable carpet with a well-defined pattern, the Brussels was a popular good-quality carpet but declined in popularity by the 1890s due to competition from the more luxurious Wilton carpets.
- Frame Racks or creel-like trays attached to the back of a Brussels carpet or Wilton carpet loom that hold the spools of pile yarn. Up to six frames may be used, with a carpet usually having as many frames as colors unless other colors are planted.
- 3-frame/6-frame Grade of Brussels or Wilton carpets, the more frames used, the greater amount of worsted is buried in the body of the fabric.
- Planting Method of achieving extra colors in a Brussels carpet or a Wilton carpet. Additional warp colors are substituted at selected intervals for the main color of a frame when it is necessary to show more colors than there are frames.
Wilton carpet Cut-pile carpet manufactured in 18th cent. in Wilton, England, and woven in the same manner as a Brussels carpet with a jacquard head, the major difference being that loops are formed over wires having a knife-like blade that, when withdrawn, cut the pile. The Wilton is a longer-wearing carpet than the Brussels with a smooth, fine, and slightly higher warp pile described as “velvet” or “plush” because of the use of thinner and higher wires. It features softer colors, intricate patterns, although less well defined, and a greater percentage of wool yarn.
Velvet carpet (Axminster Tapestry; Tapestry Wilson) Carpet printed and woven over wires in the same way as Tapestry carpet but with its pile cut as the wires are withdrawn. It was designed as an inexpensive version of a Wilton carpet, although it lacks its density, resilience and richness of color. Velvet carpets have been manufacture in solid colors since about the 1930s.
- Tourney velvet carpet (BrE) Good quality Velvet carpet with a short wool pile.
Tapestry carpet Both Tapestry carpets (or Tapestry Brussels) and Velvet carpets (Tapestry Velvet) were developed as modestly priced equivalents for Brussels carpets and Wilton carpets. A Tapestry was a very popular low-priced carpet, especially at the turn of 20th cent, but was less frequently manufactured after 1920s.
- Tapestry ingrain Two-ply Ingrain woven to imitate a three-ply by dyeing the individual warp threads and often the weft threads in the same manner as a Tapestry Brussels carpet.
Union carpet (BrE) Reversible carpet with a pile on both sides held by a binder filling.
Surrounds (Fillings) Floor covering to cover the space between a carpet and the wall, generally made of felting, linoleum or ingrain.
Brussels stouts Inferior variety of Brussels carpet popular around 1900, partially woven with jute.
Brusselette Inexpensive pile fabric made of jute, either solid colored or printed, used for carpets and rugs. The pile is produced by loosely tensioning the warp.
Hemp carpet Cheap durable carpet with a hemp warp and weft in two or more piles.
- Irish tapestry (Erin tapestry) Till woven hemp carpet with a printed pattern usually made in 36-inch widths. Popular around 1900, it was made to imitate a Brussels carpet.
Felt carpet Nonwoven carpet or rug made by interlocking wool fibers by mechanical and chemical action, moisture, and heat into a matted fabric structure that is sometimes stenciled or printed. Often used as padding under carpets.
Matting Coarse floor covering, plaited or woven, made from jute, straw, sisal, hemp or coir (coconut husks), rushes, grass, etc.
- Napier matting Plain or striped floor covering of hemp or jute.
